Story code: ST-001457
Part 4: The Escape
Richard stared at Carla, his puffy eyes blown wide with a terror so absolute it eclipsed his expensive bourbon buzz. The heavy, blued steel barrel of the pump-action shotgun trembled violently against her wet uniform shirt. The silence in the dark foyer stretched, pulling taut until it felt brittle enough to snap.
“Put it down, Richard,” Carla said. She kept her voice low, steady, and utterly devoid of pity. “Before you make a mistake we both spend the rest of our lives paying for.”
He tried to swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing sharply against his throat. He took a jerky, unsteady step backward, his resolve finally fracturing. He wanted to lower the weapon. He wanted to yield. Carla saw the collapse in his posture, the sudden, pathetic slackening of his shoulders as the reality of his situation crushed his rugged survivalist fantasy.
But Richard Sterling was a man who had only ever wielded power through proxy. He had never handled a firearm in his life before going on the run.
As he stepped back, the heel of his pristine leather slipper caught the thick, raised edge of the oriental rug again. His center of gravity pitched backward. Panic short-circuited his brain, and his sweaty hands tightened convulsively on the shotgun in a desperate attempt to catch his balance.
“No-” Carla shouted, twisting her torso violently to the side and diving for the hardwood.
The shotgun roared.
The concussive blast erupted in the confined space of the foyer like a bomb, shaking the floorboards and sucking the air straight from Carla’s lungs. A blinding tongue of orange flame illuminated the grand entryway for a violent fraction of a second, casting harsh, monstrous shadows against the walls. The blast missed Carla entirely, striking the heavy oak frame of the front door just above the deadbolt. Massive splinters of wood, chunks of plaster, and shredded fiberglass insulation exploded outward in a blinding cloud of dust and debris.
The brutal recoil ripped the weapon from Richard’s inexperienced hands. He crashed hard onto his back, his skull bouncing against the polished floor with a sickening thud. The shotgun clattered away from him, smoking and useless. The tactical flashlight spun wildly across the slate tiles, casting erratic, strobe-like beams of white light before coming to a rest against the baseboards, illuminating a thick, swirling haze of gray smoke.
Carla hit the floor hard, throwing her arms over her head as chunks of plaster rained down on her back. Her ears rang with a high, piercing whine that completely drowned out the howling storm outside.
She blinked through the stinging dust, coughing on the acrid stench of cordite and burnt wood, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. Slowly, she pushed herself up to her hands and knees.
Richard was curled into a tight fetal position on the edge of the rug. He wasn’t bleeding, but he was completely broken. He covered his face with trembling, manicured hands, sobbing openly, gasping for air in short, high-pitched wheezes. The deafening blast had shattered whatever fragile illusion of control the disgraced billionaire had left. He was no longer a dangerous man defending his fortress; he was just a terrified, pathetic fugitive crying in the dark.
As he writhed on the floor, a sleek, silver smartphone slipped from the shallow pocket of his fleece sweatpants. It slid smoothly across the polished wood, stopping inches from Carla’s knee.
The screen lit up upon impact. It had full cell service and a ninety-eight percent battery charge.
Carla didn’t hesitate. She didn’t offer a hand to help him up. She didn’t even look at the smoking shotgun. She grabbed the phone, swiping up to bypass the lock screen. It opened instantly-he hadn’t even bothered to set a passcode.
She opened the dialer, her wet thumbs flying across the glowing glass. She didn’t call the police. The gunshot had just echoed like a cannon blast across the entire valley. In a moneyed, quiet area like this, a shotgun discharging in the dead of night would absolutely prompt the neighbors down the ridge to call 911. The flashing red and blue lights were already inevitable.
Instead, she dialed a local, twenty-four-hour cab service she had memorized for emergencies, pressing the phone to her ringing ear.
“County Cab,” a bored dispatcher answered.
“I need a car at the bottom of the ridge on Old Mill Road, right at the highway turnoff,” Carla said. Her voice was surprisingly steady, though she had to speak loudly over the ringing in her own head. “I’m walking down now. Fifty dollar cash tip if they’re there in ten minutes.”
“Driver’s on the main road, he can be there in eight,” the dispatcher said, perking up at the tip.
Carla hung up. She looked down at Richard one last time. He was still hyperventilating, staring blankly at the shredded, smoking crater in his expensive oak doorframe. The smell of sulfur hung heavy in the air, mixing with his stale bourbon sweat.
“The police are coming, Richard,” Carla said, standing up and brushing the plaster dust from her wet uniform. “Somebody definitely heard that. They’re going to find you, they’re going to run your prints, and your run is over.”
He didn’t look up at her. He just rocked back and forth on the floorboards, muttering incoherently about his lawyers, his frozen accounts, his ruined life. The pristine isolation he had bought for himself was gone, destroyed by a single, panicked squeeze of a trigger.
Carla checked her scratched watch. Fourteen minutes left.
She walked past the weeping billionaire, reached for the brass handle of the damaged front door, and yanked it open. The freezing wind immediately howled into the foyer, clearing the gun smoke and hitting her wet skin like ice.
She didn’t look back. Pocketing Richard’s phone to call her parole officer from the warmth of the backseat, Carla stepped out into the torrential rain and began the long, dark sprint down the muddy driveway, racing the storm to hold onto the freedom Richard had just thrown away.